tools

So, you need to install vmtools on Ubuntu. You’ve come to the right place. I’ve done it hundreds of times, but recently a friend of mine was having some difficulty doing this. I thought I would put a quick how-to together so I could maybe help some more people out. Here goes.

How To Install VMtools on Ubuntu

First thing’s first. Before going any further, I suggest you update apt, and then upgrade. This will make sure everything is up to date on your virtual machine.

# sudo apt-get -y update
# sudo apt-get -y upgrade

Now, you need to attach the VMware tools installation disc to your virtual machine. In ESXi / vSphere, just right click on the virtual machine, in the left pane, go to Guest, then select “Install/Upgrade VMware Tools.” Like this.

If you are using VMware Workstation, or VMware Fusion, select the virtual machine in the library, then under the Virtual Machine pull down menu at the top, select “Install VMware Tools.” In VMware Fusion, it looks like this.

Now you will need to mount the VMware Tools ISO and select “Install/Upgrade VMware Tools” option on ESXi. This can be found a few different ways. I prefer to right click on the virtual machine, then go to guest and click on “Install/Upgrade VMware Tools.”